The Grievous Errors of Kram Blackhair

 (A short story I wrote a few years back)

Of the many errors which put Kram Jastsson, known as Blackhair, in his grave this was perhaps the greatest: When King Hrol died childless he expected to be given the crown.
 Now even his enemies would grant Kram his due as a warrior and leader of warriors. On the battlefield he was like a storm, cold and hard and unstoppable.
 But a King cannot solve all his problems with an axe. He must judge and cajole and above all have wisdom and in this Kram was sadly lacking.
 So it was that Iel Iellsson, a wise man indeed,  was named by Hrol in his last breath as the next king.
It is said that when he heard the news Kram flew into a rage, hurling his stool across the feasting  hall and then slaying his favourite dog.
 Iel heard of this and sighed deeply for Kram had been a great friend. He dispatched messengers to bear Kram gifts and offer him a place on his council. But knowing Blackhair all too well he also began gathering his sworn men about him.
 The messengers arrived at Kram’s hall to find him gone.


 And this was Kram’s next mistake. He fled over the border to the court of  Mael, King of the Emerlings who offered him whatever aid was needful to gain his throne.
 There has been bad blood between the Emerlings and we Drogar since the world was formed. Kram must have known that the Emerling army he brought into our lands would take the opportunity to avenge past slights.
 Certainly Drogar came to join this army: Kram’s sworn men, old friends, those with grievances large and small against Iel and his clan. But still more looked upon the pillars of smoke that marked Kram’s passage, the ransacked farms and the weeping women and their hearts hardened against him.
 At last Kram came to the great woods at Nithby and there he found Iel had gathered a host of his own. Fully nine thousand men had answered the summons from the highest in the land to the meanest, aye and women too who had seen their men slaughtered and their home set afire.
 Maybe Kram looked upon this gathering with sadness, wondering how it had come to this state, that so many had turned against a man honoured in song for many years.
Perhaps.
Perhaps he merely saw an opposing host like so many others he had broken in his time.
But it must surely have been a blow to look across the field and see the banners of so many old friends lined up on the other side. Iel Ielsson of course, but also the sons of Bjarn BearHelm, all twelve of them, and Got Stonehand was there with his great mace. So too was the warrior maiden Ygel Meldsdaughter and Kram Lyrisson, known as WhiteHair to set him apart from his namesake. And a hundred more of the most renowned warriors in the north.
 As Kram contemplated the force gathered against him a rider detached himself from their ranks and came towards them.
  Every man on the field knew him, if not by sight then by the nine-coloured robe he wore. Njal Silverfingers was a bard and the greatest of bards and Iel had chosen him to bear a message to his old comrade Kram.
 “King Iel bids you welcome, Kram Jastsson. He would take a drink with you but he has not sufficient mead for all the friends you have invited along”
Kram smiled. “Iel was ever gracious. But you may tell him I would be happy to share a jug of good ale with him once he has returned to me what should be mine.”
This is the way of it you see. A bard is sacred and so may pass freely between armies and talk with pig-farmers and kings both. Before a battle is joined it is always mannerly to discuss the reasons behind it and perhaps the chieftains will discover there is no need for bloodshed after all.
For all that, it is a remarkable thing when an army decides to sling their shields upon their backs and march home.
And this was the case on this day. Kram would not settle for a lesser prize than the crown. Iel, having taken up the crown, would not set it aside.
Now at Kram’s shoulder was the captain of the Emerling warband a man of sour and angry aspect named Lyss Whitespear and he had little time for parleying.
“Enough of this time wasting.” he cried. “Go back to your master and bid him come down and surrender his crown. If he will not then we give his men to the crows and take their women home to be our playthings.”
Njal looked at the Emerling and his voice was cold. “So be it. Know this. If Iel dies here today then the people of this realm will choose his son as king. If he is slain then we shall give the throne to each of the great lords in turn. And if they are all dead then we shall give the farmers their chance at playing king. Kram Blackhair. You should take the gold and men the Emerlings have given you and see if you can win a kingdom in the southlands. For you shall never be king here.”
 He turned to leave but then Lyss Whitespear pulled his scramasaxe from his belt and thrust it into his back..
 Both armies cried out in horror as they witnessed that which should never be witnessed: The blood of a bard spilt upon the earth.
 With a single blow from his fist Kram smashed Lyss to the ground. “You fool.” he said “Now you have turned the gods themselves against us.”
Lyss laughed then. “The gods reward those who take what they want. Now, shall we go claim your crown?”
Seeing no other way forward, Kram ordered the charge.

 As I have said before, Blackhair was a warrior supreme and naturally he  sprang from his horse and led his men in the front rank, with his famous sword Black Nail of Death held high above his head.
 Across the field Iel watched him come. He gathered his house-carles about him and gave them instructions. “If I fall then it is your task to make sure that Kram Blackhair does not leave this field alive.”
 Then he called for his banner to be unfurled and cried out to his host. “Will you let the Emerlings choose your king for you?”
 And his men spoke as one: “No!”
“Will you let such as these despoil your lands and your women and not answer for it?”
 And his men cried “No!”
“The Gods hold Bards as their own. Will you let one be slain and his killer mock you?”
And his men cried “No. Never!”
“Will you follow me, O Drogar?”
And his men cried “Yes!”  
“Then into them and let your blades drink deep. Forward!”



Like stormy waves crashing into the rocks of the shore the two hosts collided and right from the first ring of sword on sword it could be seen that the Emerlings were having the worst of it. The slaying of Njal Silverfingers had shaken them to the heart and a host that has doubts has lost half its might.
But the Drogar had been enraged by burnings and slaughter and the murder of a bard and their blows were driven by a terrible strength.
  To list the feats of valour done that day by the heroes of the Drogar would take more time than I have and so deeds went unrecorded amongst the press of battle. However, I shall mention a few to colour this tale.
Lyss Whitespear fell almost at the first clash of spears, his head split by the axe of  Gort the Shipwright. At once a great struggle arose over the body as Whitespear’s men sought to claim it and carry it from the field and Gort and his clan battled to keep their prize. The blood of a full score of men soaked into the thirsty ground before the matter was settled and Gort’s eldest son raised Whitespear’s head upon the point of his spear. Alas Gort himself lay across the body of his slain foe, a hard flung javelin piercing his body.
 In the centre of the field the Emerlings laughed to see Ygel Meldsdaughter stand against them “Go home to your baking and your brewing.” cried one man. But then a hard driven spear plunged deep into his chest and the laughter stopped. The warrior maiden grinned at the Emerlings and said. “I was never much for baking, myself. But I do love to dance. Will any of you fine men dance the spears with me?”
  As she killed her tenth man her spear snapped in her hand and Ygel Meldsdaughter was brought down by a swarm of Emerlings. But then Trym, Iel’s nephew and  a warrior of no great name,  ran forward to stand over the sword-maiden and his hard-swung axe cleared space for her to find her feet and draw her scram sax. Then  the pair of them cut a bloody road through the Emerling host. And on another day I shall tell their tale, for it is a good one.
 Brave men and maids there were aplenty that day. But not a one could stand before Kram and Black Nail of Death. At the tip of a spearhead of Drogar renegades and Emerlings he smashed his way into the centre of the Drogar shield wall and began hacking down Iel’s house carls like a farmer reaps wheat. Drogar champions threw themselves into his path and he slew them all from the lowest to the greatest.
 Iel drew his sword and began pushing his way through to his enemy and when he met him he would almost certainly have died for Kram was something more than a man that day.
 But then something happened that came as a surprise to Drogar and Emerlings and certainly Kram. But not to Iel, who had always been  a crafty man.
   You see, when Kram studied the host arrayed against him he made another mistake and it was this: When he took notice of the banners flying over the Drogar host he failed to notice the banners that were not there that should have been. Like that of Iel’s cousin and blood-brother Urfa  One-eye. Or Whaletooth Jorg, over whose lands Kram had marched this last morning. And so he failed to ask himself one most important question. If these men, and another half dozen, have not brought their warbands to the field then where are they?
  Another step forward and Kram would have been within sword’s reach of Iel but then there came a great cry from the Emerling ranks as men looked to the hill to the South and saw a mass of armed men pouring down the slope.
 There are things all warriors fear. Being helpless before the women of the enemy. Wounds that cripple but not kill. And facing an enemy to the front and to the back.
 The Emerling host broke apart like a jug under a horse’s hoof. Some men tried to form themselves into a fighting ring, others to fight their way clear to East and South.
 The bloodiest part of any battle is the ending. When men panic and run they can be hacked down from behind. The brave souls they leave behind find themselves surrounded on all sides by the foe and these too can be hacked down.
 So it was on this day.  The men of Kram’s host that tried to make a stand were slain to a man when their battle ring collapsed under the lashing of arrows and spears. They could have asked for quarter except them knew it would not be granted and so they died snarling curses.
 The men that ran where harried right to the border by vengeful Drogar. The peasants that had hidden themselves in the woods at the approach of enemy troops re-emerged  and many an Emerling was hacked into death under their  sickles and knives.
 It is said that you can trace the path of the fleeing army by the trail of bleached bones they left behind and on the border Iel set up the heads of a hundred Emerling heroes on poles. And on the forehead of each one he nailed a tablet that read, in the old runes “You are not welcome here.”

 But what of Kram Blackhair.
Did he survive the battle?
That he did. When his men melted away from around him, except for his closest sworn men, Kram thought for a moment about hurling himself into the Drogar shield wall and trying to bury Black Nail of Death in Iel’s skull. If he had lost then Iel would not win either.
 But no, he allowed himself to be dragged away by his followers and they cut their way out of the encircling Drogar. It is said he stood on the hill above the battle field and watched the last of his men form their doomed battle-ring  and that he saluted them with his sword before mounting the horse that was brought to him and riding away. Alone, for there was only one horse and his sworn men pledged to hold back the Drogar for long enough for him to flee.
 It is possible that  Kram might have returned in later years with another army. I, for one, doubt this. The Drogar would have none of him and after the bloody ruin of his army the King of the Emerlings would not greet him warmly.  As he rode away, the sound of slaughter dying  behind him, Kram must have felt like his world had come to an end. In one day he had gone from laying claim to a throne to becoming yet another drifting warrior with nothing more than his sword and his mail.
 Knowing that his enemies would seek him Southwards, on the road to Emerland, Kram instead pushed his horse at brutal pace Eastward, planning to duck across the border into the lands of the Kelmar. He had no friends there but neither were there enemies and so he might trade silver arm-rings for meat and shelter before making his way out into the world.
 When he saw the farm below him he thought of soft straw and maybe a plate of pork and spurred his tiring mount down the hill.
 And this was the final mistake. The errors he had made before put him onto a hard road indeed but the one that could not be made right, the one that gave Kram Blackhair his death,  was forgetting that one does not march uninvited  into the home of a Northern woman without answering for it..
  It was not until later that the young farmer’s wife found out the identity of her visitor. All she saw, as she came back into the house, was an armed stranger with blood on his clothing and bared steel in his hand making free with her stew pot.
 Naturally she took up the first thing within reach and charged.
And so it was that Kram Blackhair, veteran of more battles than I have teeth in my head, died on the earthen floor of a peasant longhouse, his skull smashed by a skillet.
 They gave her his weapons and armour afterwards. It seemed only fair.